THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Turning back the tide of information overload with a digest of the latest developments in stories that conservatives need to pay attention to:

† Rage Against … Whatever: The Occupy Wall Street protesters may not know – or care – that the specific piece of Wall Street they are occupying and trashing, Zuccotti Park, is the private property of Brookfield Properties, which appears powerless to evict them because of zoning regulations that govern access to privately owned public spaces, The Wall Street Journal reports:

 

The Real Estate Board of New York’s president, Stephen Spinola, told The Observer that his trade association may consider asking the Department of City Planning for new rules on the city’s POPS, perhaps allowing the private owners to close the spaces at a set time, which, he claims, would add to security and allow maintenance.

 

For his part, Mayor Michael Bloomberg says that Zuccotti Park is not part of the city park system, so authorities cannot enforce a ban against sleeping in parks overnight. So it would appear that neither the private owners, nor the city government, has the authority to close the park to the public at night. Only in NY.

 

In any case, the protesters’ lack of regard for private property extends beyond the physical borders of Zuccotti Park to nearby businesses, The New York Times reports: 

 

Panini and Company Cafe normally sells sandwiches to tourists in Lower Manhattan and the residents nearby, but in recent days its owner, Stacey Tzortzatos, has also become something of a restroom monitor. Protesters from Occupy Wall Street … have been tromping in by the scores, and not because they are hungry.

 

Ms. Tzortzatos’s tolerance for the newcomers finally vanished when the sink was broken and fell to the floor. She installed a $200 lock on the bathroom to thwart nonpaying customers, angering the protesters. …

 

Mike Keane, who owns O’Hara’s Restaurant and Pub, said that the theft of soap and toilet paper had soared … Both Ms. Tzortzatos … and Mr. Keane said the protesters rarely bought anything, yet hurled curses when they were told that only paying customers could use their bathrooms. …

 

Kira Annika, a spokeswoman for the protesters, wrote in an e-mail that she had not heard such complaints: “We were under the impression that the local business community appreciated our patronage.” [Emphasis, The Stiletto]

 

In a widely distributed pamphlet, “Welcome to Liberty Plaza: Home of Occupy Wall Street,” participants were instructed where to find relief. “After you’ve dined,” it reads, “feel free to refresh yourself in the restrooms of neighboring businesses like Burger King and McDonald’s without feeling obligated to buy anything.”

 

With business owners barring use of their facilities to the unwashed hordes, one protestor was seen defecating on an NYPD patrol car. Yeah, these ill-bred freeloaders are just like the Tea Partiers, as some insist on insisting.

 

The protesters are planning to set up encampments in other public spaces throughout lower Manhattan. Oh, goody.

 

Meanwhile, an op-ed page in The New York Times asks “what is a protest movement without a logo? The second one in the left-hand column is The Stiletto’s favorite because it unwittingly – trust her, it was unwitting – assigns a share of the blame to President Barack Hussein Obama by bringing to mind his 2008 campaign logo (“In this logo, the letter ‘O’ encloses and covers the financial center where our problems of inequality originate”): 

Another logo suggests “What if we chained the bull?” Considering how the stock market (think, retirement accounts) and the housing market have tanked since Obama took office, it’s fair to say that this administration’s economic and domestic policies have chained the bull – and the toppling of these two pillars of personal wealth amongst the middle class is where our problems of inequality originate.

† Occupy Haight Ashbury: On the occasion of what would have been John Lennon’s 71^st birthday yesterday, sports journalist Patrick Hruby offers this riff on “Imagine,” inspired by the recent revelation that the Beatle was a Reaganite who was embarrassed by the political naiveté of his youth (an excerpt):

Imagine no estate tax
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to punish success
And no regulations too
Imagine all the freedom
A shining city on a hill

You may say I'm just Teflon
But I'm on the winning team
I hope some day you'll join us
And cast aside your liberal dreams

 

† Herman Cain Rocks 'Em Like A Hurricane: Yes, Rep. Ron Paul (TX) won the Values Voters Summit straw poll with 37 percent of the 1,983 votes cast, but the real story is that Herman Cain once again bested the two putative Republican front runners former Gov. Mitt Romney (MA) and Gov. Rick Perry (TX), coming in at second place with 23 percent (Romney and Perry got 4 percent and 8 percent, respectively. The second story line is that Rep. Michelle Bachmann (MN) has again failed to get traction with evangelicals, despite assiduously wooing them. Former Sen. Rick Santorum (PA) did much better with this crowd than she did (he came in third with 16 percent, she was tied with Perry).

 

Cain – who addressed the gathering via Skype – also won the first-ever Midwest Leadership Conference straw poll with a whopping 52.6 percent. And despite not having campaigned in NH, Cain came in second to Romney (38 percent and 20 percent, respectively) – suggesting the results are based on name recognition and people taking the time and trouble to research Cain’s 9-9-9 tax reform plan.

 

Just like President Barack Hussein Obama is running against a “generic Republican” until the nominee is chosen, the Romney has to get past the “Anyone But Romney” candidate to get the nomination. Until now, the other candidates were jockeying to get into position to be the ABR choice. Depending on how Gov. Rick Perry (TX) performs in theWashington Post-Bloomberg debate tomorrow night – which focuses on economic issues, not foreign policy – Cain may have captured that elusive Number Two spot to be the Mike Huckabee of this election cycle.

 

† Deconstructing Obama’s Cairo Speech: Anyone who thinks that wearing a headscarf or hijab is a religious requirement – and, therefore banning veils and headscarves is religious discrimination – is either woefully or willfully ignorant of the fact that in Muslim countries (and increasingly, in some Western countries with large Muslim populations; see third item on page) Islamofascists are forcing Christian women to wear the constricting garments for their personal safety (click here for related story). The Associated Press tells the story of Ferial Habib a 15-year-old Christian Copt who was told by administrators at her high school that if she did not cover her head, she would not be allowed to attend – an incident that “stokes the fears of Egypt's significant Christian minority that they will become the victims as Islamists grow more assertive after the Feb. 11 toppling of President Hosni Mubarak”:

 

Habib refused. … For the next two weeks, Habib reported to school in the southern Egyptian village of Sheik Fadl every day in her uniform, without the head covering, only to be turned back by teachers.

 

One day, Habib heard the school loudspeakers echoing her name and teachers with megaphones leading a number of students in chants of "We don't want Ferial here," the teenager told The Associated Press. …

 

Habib's experience was startling because in general, Egypt's Christians, who make up at least 10 percent of the population of 80 million, have enjoyed relative freedom in terms of dress and worship. …

 

Habib was finally allowed to attend last Tuesday.

 

"I am happy I did what I want and that no one can force something on me. But I am afraid of the students and the teachers," she told AP. "The teachers are not normal with me and I am sure they will give me low grades at the end of the year."

 

† Is Obama Already A Lame Duck?: Even in Iraq, where the U.S. has paid a high price in blood and treasure to free the people from the murderous despot Saddam Hussein and built schools, hospitals, roads, and other nation-building infrastructure, President Barack Hussein Obama is unable to persuade the government to support one of his key foreign policy goals in the Middle East. Worse, Obama is being cuckolded as Iraq cozies up to Iran, The Washington Post reports:

 

Iraq is offering key moral and financial support to embattled [Syrian autocrat Bashar al-Assad], undermining a central U.S. policy objective and raising fresh concerns that Iraq is drifting further into the orbit of an American arch rival – Iran. …

 

After Iraq sent conflicting signals about its support for Assad last month, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki spoke firmly against regime change in Syria in an interview broadcast on Iraqi television Sept. 30. “We believe that Syria will be able to overcome its crisis through reforms,” Maliki said, rejecting U.S. calls for the Syrian leader to step down. His words echoed those of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who weeks earlier proposed that Syrians should “implement the necessary reforms by themselves.”

 

On other issues as well, the Maliki government in recent months has hewed closer to Iran’s stance – Iraq, for example, has supported Iran’s right to nuclear technology and advocated U.N. membership for Palestinians. …

 

Few policy objectives are more important to Iran than preserving the pro-Tehran regime in Syria, longtime Middle East observers say.

 

And what is the Obama State Department doing about this unwelcome and humiliating turn of events? Spending American taxpayer dollars even faster “racing against an end-of-year deadline to take over Iraq operations from the U.S. military, throwing together buildings and marshaling contractors in its biggest overseas operation since the effort to rebuild Europe after World War II,” The Washington Post reports:

 

The scale of the operation has raised concerns among lawmakers and government watchdogs, who fear that the State Department will be overwhelmed by overseeing [an estimated 16,000 civilians under the American ambassador – the size of an Army division], about 80 percent of them contractors. There is a risk, they say, that millions of dollars could go to waste and that bodyguards will lack adequate supervision.

 

Amongst the functions the State Department will assume is teaching Iraqis to use military equipment purchased from the U.S. Think about that for a minute.

 

† A Slow Learner: A couple of months back, The Stiletto observed that “if one definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome, then perhaps [President Barack Hussein Obama] isn’t as much a dullard as he is dissociative” (click here for related article). Now, The Associated Press is also suggesting that Obama may not be fully in touch with reality – or that he is a pathological liar (in either case, a psychiatric issue):

 

In President Barack Obama's sales pitch for his jobs bill, there are two versions of reality: The one in his speeches and the one actually unfolding in Washington.

 

When Obama accuses Republicans of standing in the way of his nearly $450 billion plan, he ignores the fact that his own party has struggled to unite behind the proposal.

 

When the president says Republicans haven't explained what they oppose in the plan, he skips over the fact that Republicans who control the House actually have done that in detail.

 

And when he calls on Congress to "pass this bill now," he slides past the point that Democrats control the Senate and were never prepared to move immediately, given other priorities. …

 

The disconnect between what Obama says about his jobs bill and what stands as the political reality flow from his broader aim: to rally the public behind his cause and get Congress to act, or, if not, to pin blame on Republicans.

 

This is not the first time the issue of Obama’s psychological fitness has come up. One expert on narcissistic personality disorder (malignant self love) has characterized Obama as an NPD, because he “displays behaviors [that] are among the hallmarks of pathological narcissism.”

 

† Prediction: Christians Will Be “Extinct” In The Holy Land Within 60 Years: After Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was toppled, the new government promised Egypt’s Christians that it would undo his restrictions against renovating and building churches. Instead, ultraconservative Salafi clerics have stoked sectarian violence (related article, fourth item on the page), claiming that  What is a protest movement without a logoWhat is a protest movement without a logoChristians were seeking to spread their faith by building new churches, The Associated Press reports:

 

Recent attacks on churches in southern Egypt also illustrate the heat Christians are under. Under Mubarak-era rules, the building of a church or repairs for an existing one required permission from local authorities and the state security agency - a rule not applied to mosques. The rules sought to avoid outbursts of violence from Muslim hard-liners. Since permission was rarely given, Christians at times resorted to building churches in secret, often in parish guesthouses.

 

On Sept. 30, a Muslim mob attacked a church in southern village of Marynab in Aswan province because they believed the Christians were illegally constructing a new church. Church officials had documents showing they had permission to build a new church to replace a previous, run-down one at the same site.

 

Even before the attack, Muslim protests prompted priests to turn to security officials, who arranged a meeting with local elders and Salafis. In the face of their demands, the priests agreed to take down a cross and bells on the church, according to church officials. Still, after the Christians erected a dome, the mob attacked, setting the church and nearby homes and shops on fire.

 

Some believe that the Egyptian military may be stoking sectarian violence to hang on to power longer, or to foment civil war so that democratic elections will be cancelled.

 

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: The Obama administration wasted no time asking the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta to issue an injunction against the continued enforcement of AL’s new anti-illegal immigration law after a federal judge upheld two key provisions that allow authorities to question and detain people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, and to allow the immigration status of public school students to be checked (related article). The judge ruled that the federal government failed to show that the public interest would be harmed if these provisions, but the administration contends that the law is “highly likely to expose persons lawfully in the United States, including school children, to new difficulties in routine dealings.”

 

Meanwhile, the law – which remains in effect while the appellate court considers the Justice Department’s request – is doing exactly what it was designed to, with illegal immigrants pulling up stakes all across the state and relocating to TX or FL, “where the laws are not as strict,” The Washington Post reports. The article, which follows the usual MSM practice of conflating legal and illegal immigrants – supposedly, both groups are “fleeing” the state even though legal immigrants are not targeted by the new law – also notes the conundrum caused by anchor babies:

 

Many such families have legal and illegal members, which presents them with wrenching choices. One illegal couple’s daughter, born in the United States, just won a college scholarship; another such couple’s daughter was recently engaged to a local boy. Both decided they would flee Alabama anyway, reluctantly putting family unity and safety before individual opportunities.

 

Having put their own self-interest before the collective interest of the elected officials representing U.S. citizens to decide which immigrants to invite here to pursue individual opportunity, it’s only fitting that they now have to choose between two competing self-interests: family and individual opportunity. It’s clear to everyone but the MSM that illegals in AL are not leaving because they care about the environmental damage caused by millions of illegals tramping across our Southern border; depressing the already bleak prospects of low-skilled Americans in the workforce; or the otherwise unnecessary allocation of tax dollars to build schools and hire teachers to educate their children that financially struggling communities have spent.  

 

† The Pluck Of The Irish: Michael Hasenstab, Franklin Templeton Fixed Income Group SVP and co-director of the firm’s  international bond department, makes the case that “Ireland's example could offer other indebted countries some inspiration for solving their own crises” in this Wall Street Journal op-ed (related article, seventh item on the page):

 

Ireland was brought down by its wayward, over-leveraged banking system, which fueled a private-sector credit boom and a real-estate bubble. …

 

Unable to rely on an exchange-rate adjustment, Ireland has engineered a more than 20% drop in unit labor costs in manufacturing since 2008 – which boosts its competitiveness equivalent to a 20% currency depreciation. Broad-based wage cuts have been painful, but they are working: Since January 2008 Ireland's trade surplus has doubled, and now runs at more than 20% of GDP. …

 

Meanwhile, the government has resisted pressure from its EU partners to raise its 12.5% corporate-tax rate. Dublin's regulatory touch also remains light. This business climate, along with a productive and educated work force, has served as a magnet for foreign direct investment. It rose 19% in the first half of this year, led by technology and services companies. …

 

Beyond the country's strong economic fundamentals, broad social and political consensus sets Ireland apart. Austerity is bitter medicine to swallow, but Ireland's citizens understand there was no easy way out of their predicament, and that their short-term sacrifices are laying the groundwork for sustainable growth in the future. Thanks to this general social consensus – in contrast to the rioting and protests seen further south in Europe – and despite a change in government, Ireland's reforms remain fully on track.

 

† There’s Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And Lip: The Institute of Medicine, an independent board that advises the government on health policy, is recommending that state government health insurance exchanges should offer coverage only for services that small businesses employing fewer than 50 workers can afford, The Wall Street Journal reports:

 

"If it was not affordable, then many people would not be able to obtain it, even with government help, and this would conflict with the purpose" of the health care overhaul law, the institute wrote in its report to the government.

 

How the package is designed is creating a showdown that pits medical specialists and advocacy groups against employers and insurance companies. Groups representing autism specialists, chiropractors, acupuncturists and others see a chance to get broad coverage and are lobbying heavily for specific inclusion in the final package requirements. Employers and insurers are forcefully pushing back, warning that covering too many ailments will make insurance so expensive that some employers could stop offering coverage altogether. …

 

A separate actuarial analysis by the National Health Council found that if regulators based the benefit package on a popular Blue Cross Blue Shield plan used by federal workers, it would cost $5,032 for an individual plan and $12,418 for a family plan. There would be no way to provide all those benefits and still meet the cost guidelines for the cheapest plan design that's supposed to be sold inside the exchange, the group found.

 

But this common-sense requirement – which would seem to preclude coverage costly procedures (such as in vitro fertilization) and treatment that only a small number of people would need (such as treatment for eating disorders) – is a double-edged sword.

 

Bariatric surgery, which has been shown to instantly reverse type 2 diabetes – and would actually bend the cost curve downward – will in all likelihood not be covered.

 

Caregivers – whose tireless efforts and personal sacrifice keep elderly and disabled family members (including Iraq and Afghanistan veterans) out of costly nursing homes could find the few support services they do get curtailed or eliminated (the CLASS Act covering long-term care has quietly shelved by the Obama administration – for now).

 

And some cancer tests and treatments may no longer be deemed “worth the cost,” even though every oncology group emphasizes early detection and specific patients lived longer because of treatments such as Avastin for breast cancer. Can anyone argue that the extra years of life afforded to Steve Jobs because of the top-notch cancer treatment he received were not used productively and contributed to economic and job growth that Keynesians can only dream of?

 

Obviously, Jobs could afford to pay out-of-pocket for any treatments not covered by Apple’s health insurance plan, but few people can. And though few of us have his talents and vision, our culture puts a premium on human life – which is why abortion is so divisive, and the young people protesting “corporate greed” aren’t planning suicide bombings – so our lives are equally valuable to us, to our loved ones and to our communities. This is why “death panels” are un-American.

 

Coverage for treatments and services that bend the healthcare cost curve in the right direction, should, obviously, be included in any private or public health insurance plan. But what about less obvious choices, such as coverage for acupuncture v. Avastin? Realistically, in either case, the best special interest lobbyist will win. Which will not only be bad for our health, but for the economic health of the nation.